Now, you would think that creating an elevator pitch is a simple exercise but it is surprising how many companies have ones that are bad, inaccurate or confusing. The big problem is there’s so much information they want to include, they lose sight of the fact it is supposed to be short and sweet.

The other issue is the people creating an elevator pitch live and breathe their company and products every day. It gives them tremendous knowledge but little external perspective or context. As a result, elevator pitches often reflect what a company wants to tell people as opposed to what people want to hear. It’s a subtle but important difference that often gets dismissed.

So what are the keys to a successful elevator pitch?

It starts by being as simple and to-the-point as possible. We do/make “X” that helps customers do “Y”. It’s a sentence anyone can understand immediately. There’s no industry acronyms or lingo. Again, think simple because we live in a fast-moving world in which people don’t want to work to get what your company does.

Second, make it abundantly clear how your product meets the needs of users. How does it make their lives more convenient or productive? Does it save them time or make their lives easier? Again, think about what the target audience wants or needs; not what you want to tell them.

Third, you need to think about adding a little sales sizzle by showing how your product is different from the competition. It doesn’t have to be a multi-pronged, technical kind of thing but a sentence that spells out why your product stands out from the crowd. Again, it’s not about blowing your own horn but making it clear to users that you’re not just selling another widget but something that rivals don’t do or offer.

The truth is creating an effective elevator pitch takes time and effort. It is an iterative process that can evolve from your original idea. It should also involve external testing, including people who do not have any involvement with your company to generate honest and frank feedback.

The other reality about elevator pitch is they change over time as your company, the marketplace, economy and customers change. It means making sure your elevator pitch is tested or updated on a regular basis.

For companies that have great elevator pitch, life is so much easier because every employee is reading off the same page, which provides consistency across the board.

If you’re looking for help with elevator pitches, messaging and other digital marketing needs, my company, ME Consulting, offers these services to startups and entrepreneurs.

Well, it turns out newsletters are not only alive and well but apparently thriving. At a time when we’re multi-tasking, flitting from one service to another, and not really paying attention, newsletters have emerged as an effective way to reach existing and potential customers.

I subscribe to five or six newsletters that arrive on a daily or weekly basis. Some are quickly scanned, while others are combed through for information on ideas. In some way, they provide value, particularly because they come to me rather than me having to go to them.

The role and value of the newsletter jumped into the spotlight recently when I started to receive one from Freshbooks, which offers online invoicing.

What I like about the “The Leaflet” is it’s customer-centric, and offers stories about how customers are using and benefiting from using Freshbooks’ service. It also provides a smattering of interesting content. The “sell” for Freshbooks service is soft, which is the right way to go because signing up for the newsletter means Freshbooks has my attention.

For startups looking to connect and engage with customers, a newsletter should receive serious attention. When done well, they can become valuable sales and marketing tools that don’t necessarily have to consume a lot of time and resources if structured properly.

Newsletters are way to keep a company front and centre by letting existing and potential customers know that you’re interested in providing them with value-added information, you’ve got interesting things happening, and you want stay connected.

So the next time you dismiss the idea of a newsletter, you may want to think twice.

What do you think? Do newsletters work? If so, what do they need to include or be structured to be effective.

While simple may seem unsophisticated, uninteresting or frill-free, it is also an approach that drives a Web site’s accessibility, usability and effectiveness.

Since starting my consulting business, it has been amazing and troubling to see many Web sites feature too much information, poor navigation and ineffective messaging that they make it difficult, if not impossible to be used.

Rather than pulling in people to read more content, get more information, register or make a transaction, these Web sites drive people away because they they seem too complicated, intimidating or not user-friendly. In other words, they don’t make things simple for people to use.

So why does simplicity matter?

The harsh truth is Web users are lazy and time-strapped. As a result, they want Web sites to be delivered on a silver platter. They don’t want to think about what they should do; it has to be blatantly obvious and intuitive. And it needs to be obvious with seconds, otherwise people will quickly click to the next Web site or search engine.

Many companies fail the “keep it simple, stupid” approach because they buy into the idea that by showing or telling as much as possible, it will provide visitors with a variety of options to make a decision.

Unfortunately, this approach doesn’t work.

It’s like going to a Denny’s restaurant with a menu featuring dozens of choices. It can make ordering an agonizing process. An easier option is going to a diner that only has a handful of items on the menu. It’s easy and quick for people to order because less (fewer choices) can be more (quicker choices).

So how can a Web site be simple yet effective? There are three key considerations:

1. The overall design, which takes into account the use of colours and whitespace, graphics and icons, etc.
2. The navigation, which needs to be intuitive, dead simple and obvious. People shouldn’t have to think about what to click on next; instead it has to be straightforward and easy.
3. Messaging, which means having text that effectively articulates what a company does and its benefits, as well as nomenclature that is easy to understand and intuitive.

Coming up with a good-looking, well designed and easy to use Web site can be a major challenge, which explains why so many Web sites are, at best, mediocre. In many cases, it comes down to money because effective Web site isn’t a cheap proposition.

But I believe that it’s an attractive investment that involves short-term pain but long-term gain.

Some of the questions we ask ourselves is whether there’s room in the market for a new conference, can we put together compelling programming, and will people pay for something with no track record. It was with some trepidation that we launched meshmarketing in 2009, particularly given the economic downturn had pounded marketing budgets. With some luck and great content, we’ve established a pretty strong foundation for meshmarketing.

So when we decided to pull the trigger on meshwest, there was a combination of excitement and trepidation. We always wanted to take mesh national, and the time had come to either do it or shelve the idea. In the end, we decided it was a good idea, and we launched meshwest last week in Calgary.

With a mixture of happiness and relief, meshwest got off to a great start. We had a full house at the University of Calgary that were engaged and enthusiastic. And we had a great line-up of speakers – people such as Tobias Lutke, Keith Boulis, Danny Robinson, Dan Debow and Mark MacLeod that came in from out of town, and a local crew led by Doug Lacombe and Greg Hounslow.

As important, we met lots of interesting people and made some great connections that will only help us make the next meshwest in Calgary even better – along with meshevents in Edmonton and Vancouver later this year. From a personal perspective, it was insightful to get a handle on the local high-tech community.

Some of the highlights from last week include:

- The keynote conversation with Shopify.com CEO Tobias Lutke. Shopify is one of Canada’s most successful Web companies with an e-commerce platform that has more than 15,000 customers that generate sales of about $250-million. Lutke provided some great insight into how to start a business, the ways to maintain a healthy corporate culture, and how Ottawa-based Shopify has financed its growth.

- The panel featuring Leigh Himel, Sarah Dickinson and WestJet’s Greg Hounslow, which was focused on how companies can establish a strong foundation to succeed with social media. Hounslow provided hands-on insight into what it’s like to operate a corporate social media program, while Himel and Dickinson

- The Twitter panel with Allyson Simpson, Tony Rino and William Bakker. Rather than talk about the strategy or the tools, the panelists offered up first-hand experiences in using Twitter to drive marketing campaigns and business. In particular, Simpson charmed the audience by talking about how the Melrose Cafe has used Twitter to build a community and attract business.

Here’s a video of Doug Lacombe talking about the social media landscape in Calgary:

Doug Lacombe Talks About Calgary’s Social Media Scene from Mark Evans on Vimeo.

This group will not include me. Why? Despite GroupOn’s high profile and 83 million e-mail subscribers, I’m not convinced it has a rock-solid business or enough of a competitive edge to justify its valuation,

Truth be told, GroupOn is an e-mail marketing company that has enjoyed first-mover advantage to become the industry leader. These days, however, there is no lack of competition. The barriers to entry are low, many players are also well-financed, and niche players are appearing to make competition even that much intense.

Another thing that would trouble me as an investor is whether GroupOn’s service will remain appealing to companies using it to drum up more business. Sure, there are success stories of how a muffin maker attracted thousands of new customers by offering a free muffin via GroupOn. But there are also lots of stories about companies that have taken a financial bath because they were forced to offer incredible deals to satisfy GroupOn’s needs.

In other words, consumers love GroupOn because the deals seem so good – assuming they actually take advantage of the purchases they make – while companies struggle whether GroupOn makes sense economically.

At the same time, GroupOn has demonstrated it is a business that can’t easily scale. Last year, it had $710-million in revenue but it also employs 7,000. To support its growth, GroupOn needs to hire more people. At the same time, GroupOn also needs to aggressively spend on marketing to attract consumers and businesses.

There is no doubt GroupOn is an interesting business experiencing strong revenue growth. With a $30-billion valuation, however, I’m far from convinced it is a good investment or a slam-dunk long-term business proposition.

For more thoughts on GroupOn’s IPO, check out Business Insider and GigaOm’s Mathew Ingram who asks if “Is Groupon Selling Tickets to the Bubble Parade?” while highlighting that GroupOn continues to spend aggressively on marketing while it racks up losses.

For some other thoughts on the GroupOn IPO, check out this video. What struck me was someone who asked why GroupOn was in a rush to do an IPO because “we’re way beyond paying the mortgage here”.

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Having looked at thousands of Web sites (an occupational and personal hazard) and helped a growing number of clients develop and design their Web sites, I have a pretty good idea of how I want markevans.ca to look and what I want it to do. The challenge I’ve discovered is turning a vision into reality is challenging and, at times, frustrating.

At the same time, it has been really insightful to be on the other side of the table. It has given me a new appreciation about a client’s needs and how the process of creating a new or refreshed Web site needs to be structured.

One of the biggest lessons is that simply having a vision isn’t good enough. Nor is it enough to talk to a designer about the look and feel that you want. The problem is neither approach gives a designer enough insight and information about what you want or like. Design is a very subjective and personal thing so one person’s idea of good design can be radically different than other person’s.

Here are a few “rules” about Web design that I consider essential:

1. When you’re deciding on a Web designer, review their portfolios to see if their work and style aligns with your vision. Be critical. If you don’t like what you see, move on. If their works catches your eye, ask for a meeting to get a sense of fit, including how they like to work and the processes they use. Ask for references to get more information and insight about how other projects happened.

2. Before you launch a project, select a number of Web sites you like. They don’t need to have similar themes but it helps to pick Web sites that have the look and feel you’re striving to achieve. At the time, you can pick Web sites that have particular features you like. At the same time, ask the Web designer for Web sites they like to get a better sense of their taste.

3. Make sure there is a structured process that starts with an initial meeting, followed by a brainstorming/information session, and then by wireframes and mockups before you get to actually creating the design. Along the way, there needs to be opportunities to change things, although there should be limits, otherwise you’ll be change/edit hell.

4. Don’t be afraid to speak up if you don’t like the work being done. At the end of the day, it’s your Web site and you want it to work for you. It means if the process or design isn’t hitting home, speak up or forever hold your peace.

5. The cost of a Web design can be small or huge depending on your needs. Establish a budget before you start so a designer knows what they have to work with if, in fact, they decide to work with you.

To get a better sense of the Web sites that I find appeal, here’s a mini-list:
- MailChimp
- Rogers Ventures
- Orange Sprocket

You’d be surprised to hear how many times someone asks that question with the expectation they’ll get a pretty specific answer. It is based on the belief there’s a “retail price” for a Web site and/or every Web site is created equal.

The truth is that asking how much a Web site costs is like asking how much a car costs – it depends on how many doors you want, the size of the engine, whether it needs to have air-conditioning, automatic vs. standard, leather seats vs. pleather, etc. In other words, there is no standard answer.

So when someone asks how much does a Web site cost, the answer is: “What do you want the Web site to do? How many bells and whistles do you need? Do you have any ideas for design or brand guidelines? Is your existing Web structured well? How much content do you have?”

It’s only when you drill down that the cost of a Web site starts to materialize. Sure, there are ranges depending on how many pages are needed, the features and design requirements, etc. but it can be difficult to provide someone with a price off the top of your head.

The reason the cost question is being frequently asked these days is there’s a huge Web site refresh cycle happening. During the economic boom, many companies paid little or no attention to their Web sites because there didn’t seem to be a need to change them when business was rocking.

Today, however, many companies are scrutinizing their Web sites because more difficult economic conditions have made the marketplace more competitive. As a result, any edge a company can achieve is important.

At the same time, social media (aka inbound marketing) has made it more important to have a Web site that performs well and meets expectations. You can do a great job with social media marketing but if your Web site fails to deliver, social media is a waste of time.

For people like myself who provide Web site strategy, content, development and design, there are lots of business opportunities. As a supplier, the key consideration is being upfront with clients about pricing and, as important, asking a lot of the right questions to determine their needs and budget.

So what were the highlights of mesh ’11? Without going into too much detail, here’s a personal list:

1. The venue – the Allstream Centre – was a major move for mesh because it’s much bigger than MaRS, which hosted the first five mesh events. Like any new home, there were a few kinks but, for the most part, it worked really well. It was great to have more meeting rooms and more space to mingle and eat.

2. The sponsors village – However you want to cut it, sponsors need to be part of the mix for a good conference. They provide the support needed to put on a good show. At the same time, sponsors want to be more than just a logo on the Web site and swag. At mesh, the village was part of the landscape so that they had great exposure that seemed natural and non-obtrusive.

3. The keynotes, particularly Gabe Zichermann’s talk with Stuart MacDonald about gameification. There are speakers who have a gift for entertaining, educating and engaging, and Gabe is a perfect example of someone who delivers all three. It was a keynote that delivered endless pearls of wisdom, and I found myself scribbling lots of notes.

A great example was Gabe’s contention that Web sites need to be simple rather than offer a lot of options, which is something that I constantly advocate when doing Web site projects for clients. Gabe also talked about the importance of rewarding users when they do what they you want. This can even message message such as “You’re amazing” after they register.

4. The porn panel – With a great lineup of speakers that included Pink Visual CEO Alison Vivas, who runs an adult entertainment company, it epitomized a mesh panel at its best. The panelists were engaged with each other, they had different perspectives to offer, they were entertaining and educational, and the audience was into it. Here’s the Huffington Post Canada story on the panel.

5. The bean bag chairs from FatBoy, which were a hit of the conference. Imagine walking into a large conference ballroom to discover there are 20 different coloured bean bag chairs to sit in. Now, a few people may have gone too far when they decided to take a nap but they were one of the small touches that made mesh really work. (Note: The photo above is the mesh gang post-mesh.)

6. The influencer panel with David Armano and Valeria Maltoni – With so much interest in the role of influencers within social media, the room was packed. As some of the leading thinkers about digital marketing, Armano and Maltoni were well-armed to provide perspective. If I had to moderate the panel over again, I would have pressed them into talking more about the tools – PeerIndex, Klout, mPact, etc. – because everyone gets that influence is an important thing but a lot of people are struggling with how to identify and successfully engage with influencers.

7. The TVO panel with host Steve Paikin, Micah Sifry, Jesse Brown, the NDP’s Charlie Angus and Tony Clement, the new Treasury Minister. It was a wonderful panel, highlighted by Angus proclaiming Twitter had little value – something that didn’t go over while in a room in which Twitter has enthusiastic support, including Clement.

There are lots of other highlights but these are some that jumped out. I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about the other important part of mesh – the people who attended and spoke, and their enthusiasm to network, exchange ideas and engage. It’s something that makes mesh different and wonderful.

Now, it’s on to Calgary for meshwest, and pretty soon, we’ll be getting the programming machine going for meshmarketing in November…and then it’ll be time for mesh ’12 in May 2012!

Links: It was great to see so much coverage of mesh. One of the blog posts that caught my attention was Louise Armstrong’s post on conference etiquette, which captures the essence of mesh. As well, Micah Sifry (aka TechPresident) did a wonderful post about Canada’s Internet landscape.

More: Here are the “official” mesh photos.

But given the emergence of social media, there is a lot of interest from companies and organizations looking for people who can explain what’s happening and what to do. Presentations are a lot more work than I had imagined but they are good for business because being able to demonstrate your expertise first-hand is a great way to connect with people.

While I haven’t taken the plunge and signed up for a presentation course, I have been spending a lot of time reading about best practices and watching videos of people who are good at delivering presentations that captivate and resonate. Thee biggest lesson I’ve learned is while there are people who are natural presenters, many of the best speakers do well because they’re prepared and experienced.

Here are some of the key lessons I’ve learned about making presentations:

1. Being prepared can’t be under-estimated. It’s not enough to know your subject matter inside out, a good presentation happens because the speaker knows what they’re going to deliver and how it’s going to be done. A crucial element is rehearsing your presentations, which means going through everything as if you were doing it for real. It is always surprising to discover while rehearsing that some parts of your presentation don’t work, which is something you’d never know until it was late otherwise.

2. Think of a presentation as a story or narrative. It’s more than a series of slides with interesting facts and graphics. Instead, you’re drawing people into your presentation by delivering an interesting, engaging or enlightening tale that starts with an introduction, provides some drama or entertainment, and then ends with a conclusion of what you’ve told the audience. An effective technique is telling stories that involve personal experiences so people can relate to the person on-stage.

3. Arrive early to prepare and get a lay of the land. I like to get to a venue at least 30 minutes before the presentation starts. This lets me learn about the technical set-up, the layout of the room, and get a sense of the audience from the organizers. Ideally, the room is empty so I can set up the presentation and run through a few slides, including those featuring videos.

4. Make yourself available before and after the presentation. It’s not enough to get on stage and deliver what you were asked to do. It is important to connect with the audience so they can get a sense of your personality and skill-set. Again, you want to make a connection as opposed to simply being a performer.

5. Turn everything off on your computer to avoid any technical surprises. I learned this lesson the hard way when during a presentation, there was soft music playing in the background. At first, I thought it was the audio system but soon learned I had left iTunes running. Needless to say, it was embarrassing but an important lesson. You should turn off applications running the background such as Twitter and DropBox that may provide notification alerts.

6. Be prepared for things to go wrong. As much as you’re prepared and well-rehearsed, not everything always goes according to plan. It could be that the videos you created don’t work or there’s no audio system.

7. Be ready to shift the focus on your presentation if you discover it’s not resonating with the audience. It could be something you learn before the presentation in talking with people attending the event. Or it could be something you sense during the presentation itself. It may not be a matter of abandoning your presentation but shifting gears and doing some ad-libbing. It means you need to be aware of the visual clues. Are people nodding their heads or writing notes as you speak? Are they laughing in the right spots, or not laughing at all?

8. As much as it would be great to create a presentation that could be used repeatedly (aka shampoo, rinse, repeat), the reality is presentations need to be customized to meet the needs and interests of the audience. In particular, case studies or examples have to feature companies within a particular sector. If you’re doing a presentation for event planners, for example, show them event planners, hotels and caterers using social media.

9. Thank the audience for attending. As much as you’re the “star attraction”, it takes two to tango. A good and engaged audience can make a presentation work really well. An audience not into it can easily kill a presentation.

10. Think of your presentation as a script that constantly changes and evolves. The parts/slides that resonate are retained while sections that don’t work should be replaced. I’m amazed, for example, how dramatically my social media presentation has changed and improved over the past six months.

Resources: Some of the good books I’ve read about presenting include the “The Naked Presenter” by Garr Reynolds and “Confessions of a Public Speaker” by Scott Berkun. Scott Stratten has a good post offering 30 quick tips for speakers.

To paraphrase Ed Sullivan, we’ve got a “really big show” with terrific keynotes and a line-up of excellent panels and workshops. Before getting into the details, there a few new wrinkles for mesh ’11. They include:

- More workshops. Given the popularity of workshops, we have decided to offer six per stream. Yup, there will be 24 workshops in total, which will provide lots of opportunities for hands-on, interactive learnings.

- Moving to the Allstream Centre at Exhibition Place. After getting a feet wet by moving meshMarketing to the AllStream Centre last November, we decided to take the plunge with mesh as well. With more room and lots of parking, we think it’s an excellent venue that will make it possible to let more people come.

- A “Sponsors Village” in which the companies that support mesh will be able to strut their stuff.

So what about the programming? For starters, here’s the line-up of keynote speakers.

Society: Ron Deibert of the Citizen Lab will provide insight about state control of the internet, efforts in the Arab world to shut down the internet, and efforts taken to circumvent that.

Marketing: After wowing the crowd at meshMarketing, we felt compelled to bring back Gabe Zichermann, who will talk the online psychology, behaviour and motivation of online users, including the growing role of gamification.

Business: With the Web having a major impact on the work landscape, Mark Surman of the Mozilla Foundation will get into how companies can be social and motivate and keep younger, Web-savvy employees, who are used to moving around and doing things that motivate them intrinsically instead of extrinsically.

Media: Jeff Jarvis, a popular blogger and former journalist, will talk about how the media is changing, the rise of WikiLeaks as a press entity, crowdsourcing, transparency and other factors and where the future of journalism is headed.

As a bonus, we also have a “Super Panel” featuring Mona Seif, an Egyptian activist who will give us some insight into how digital activism played a key role in the political uprising ended the 30-year reign of Hosni Mubarak.

You can get more information on the mesh Web site about the rest of the speakers who will be appearing on panels and workshops within the media, society, marketing and business streams.

You’re probably wondering about tickets. Until April 20, you can buy early-bird tickets for $539 + HST. (After that, tickets will be $639 + HST). There are also 50 student tickets available for $99 each. You can buy tickets here.